Anything for a quiet life.

Title of a play by Middleton.

As the case stands.

Middleton, The Old Law, Act i. Sc. 1.

At my finger's end.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546. Shakespeare, Twelfth
Night, i. 3.

At sixes and sevens.

Heywood's Proverbs. Middleton, The Widow, i. 2. Beggars should [must] be no choosers.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546. Beaumont and
Fletcher, Scornful Lady, v. 3.

Better late than never.

Heywood's Proverbs.

Tusser, Five Hundred

Points of Good Husbandry. Bunyan, Pilgrim's
Progress. Murphy, The School for Guardians.

By hook or by crook.

Wycliffe's Controversial Tracts, circa

1370,

Spenser, Faerie Queene, iii. 1, 17. Skelton, Colin Clout, 1520. Heywood's Proverbs. Beaumont and Fletcher, Women Pleased, i. 3. This phrase derives its origin from the custom of certain manors where tenants are authorized to take fire-bote by hook or by crook; that is, so much of the underwood as may be cut with a crook, and so much of the loose timber as may be collected from the boughs by means of a hook.

Candle to the sun.

Selden, Preface to Mare Clausum. Burton, Anat.
of Mel. Pt. iii. Sec. 2. Surrey, A Praise of Love.
Sidney, Discourses on Government, Vol. i. Ch. ii.
Sec. 23. Young, Love of Fame, Sat. vii. l. 97.

Carpet knights.

Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Pt. i. Sec. 2.
Castles in the air.

Stirling, Sonnets, S. 6. Burton, Anat. of Mel., The
Author's Abstract. Sidney, Defence of Poesy.
Sir Thomas Browne, Letter to a Friend. Giles
Fletcher, Christ's Victory. Herbert, The Syna-
gogue. Swift, Duke Grafton's Answer. Broome,
Poverty and Poetry. Fielding, Epistle to Wal-
pole. Cibber, Non Juror, Act ii. Churchill,
Epistle to Lloyd. Shenstone, On Taste, Pt. ii.
Lloyd, Epistle to Colman.

Chip of the old block.

Ray's Proverbs. Burke, ante, p. 385.

Coast was clear.

Drayton, Nymphidia.

Compare great things with small.

Virgil, Georgics, Book iv. l. 176. Milton, Par. Lost, Book ii. 1.921. Cowley, The Motto. Dryden, Ovid's Met., Book i. l. 727. Tickell, Poem on Hunting. Pope, Windsor Forest.

Comparisons are odious.

Burton, Anat. of Mel., Pt. iii. Sec. 3. Heywood,

A Woman killed with Kindness, i. 1.

El. 8. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

Comparisons are odorous.

Donne,

Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, iii. 5.

Comparisons are offensive.

Don Quixote, Pt. ii. Ch. 1.

Dark as pitch.

Ray's Proverbs. Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress, Pt.

1. Gay, The Shepherd's Week. Wednesday.

Deeds, not words.

Beaumont and Fletcher, The Lover's Progress, Act iii. Sc. 1. Butler, Hudibras, Pt. i. C. 1, 7. 867.

Devil take the hindmost.

Beaumont and Fletcher, Bonduca, iv. 3.

Hudibras, Pt. i. Canto 2, l. 633.

Butler,

Prior, Ode on

taking Nemur. Pope, Dunciad, Book ii. l. 60. Burns, To a Haggis.

Diamonds cut diamonds.

Ford, The Lover's Melancholy, Act. i. Sc. 1.

Discretion is the better part of valour.

Shakespeare, Henry IV., Pt. i. v. 4. Churchill,
The Ghost, Book i. l. 232.

Discretion the best part of valour.

Beaumont and Fletcher, A King, and no King, iv. 3. Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Clarke's Param. 1639. Franklin, Poor Richard. My hour is eight o'clock, though it is an infallible Rule, Sanat, santificat, et ditat surgere mane. A Health to the Gentle. Prof. of Servingmen, 1598, repr. Roxb. lib. p. 121.

Eat thy cake and have it too.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546. Herbert, The Size.
Bickerstaff, Thomas and Sally.

Enough is good as a feast.

Dives and Pauper, 1493.
1575. Ray's Proverbs.
den Tragedy, Act vi.
Village, iii. 1.

Gascoigne's Memories,
Fielding, Covent Gar-
Bickerstaff, Love in a

Every tub must stand upon its own bottom. Ray's Proverbs. Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress. Macklin, The Man of the World, i. 2.

Every why hath a wherefore.

Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, ii. 2. Butler,
Hudibras, Pt. i. Canto 1, l. 132.

Facts are stubborn things.

Smollett, Trans. Gil Blas, Book x. Ch. 1. Elliot,
Essay on Field Husbandry, p. 35, n. (1747).

Faint heart ne'er won fair lady.

Britain's Ida, Canto v. St. 1. Ballad by W. Elderton, 1569. Rock of Regard, 1576. King, Orpheus and Eurydice. Burns, To Dr. Blacklock. Colman, Love Laughs at Locksmiths, Act i. Fast and loose.

Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act i. Sc. 1. Fast bind, fast find.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, ii. 5. Jests of Scrogin, 1565. Fish nor flesh, nor good red herring.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546. Sir H. Sheers, Satyr on the Sea Officers. Tom Brown, Æneus Sylvius's Letter. Dryden, Epilogue to the Duke of Guise.

Fret and fume.

Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, ii. 1.

Give an inch he 'll take an ell.

Heywood's Proverbs. John Webster, Sir Thomas
Wyatt. Hobbes, Liberty and Necessity, No. iii.

Give ruffles to a man who wants a shirt.

Sorbière (1610-1670). Tom Brown, Laconics.
Goldsmith, The Haunch of Venison.

Give the devil his due.

Shakespeare, Henry IV. Pt. i. i. 2. Dryden, Epilogue to the Duke of Guise.

God helps those who help themselves.

Sidney, Discourses concerning Government, Vol. i.
Ch. ii. Sec. 23. Franklin, Poor Richard.

Heaven ne'er helps the men who will not act.
Sophocles, Frag. 288, Plumptre's Trans.

Help thyself, and God will help thee.
Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

Aide tor et le ciel t'aidera.

La Fontaine, Book vi. Fable 18.

God sends meat, and the Devil sends cooks. Ray's Proverbs. Garrick, Epigram on Goldsmith's Retaliation.

Golden mean.

Horace, Book 2, Ode x. 5. My Mind to me a King-
dom is. Massinger, The Great Duke of Florence,
Acti. Sc. 1. Pope, Moral Essays, Ep. iii. l. 246.
Rowe, The Golden Verses.

Good to be merry and wise.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546. Eastward Hoe, 1605.
Burns, Here's a health to them that's awa'.

Gray mare will prove the better horse.

Heywood's Proverbs, 1546. Pryde and Abuse of
Women, 1550. The Marriage of True Wit and
Science. Butler, Hudibras, Pt. ii. C. 2, l. 698.
Fielding, The Grub Street Opera, ii. 4.
Epilogue to Lucius.

Prior,

Mr. Macaulay thinks that this proverb originated in the preference generally given to the gray mares of Flanders over the finest coach-horses of England. - History of England, Vol. i. Ch. Macaulay is writing of the latter half of the seventeenth century, while the proverb was used a century earlier.

3.